My Three Days in Gilead Part 1

My Three Days in Gilead.

by Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal.

In profound grat.i.tude, this little volume is dedicated to the memory of William Barakat of Jerusalem.

My faithful, careful dragoman, who in manhood's prime, yet not many months before his death, guided me in safety, not only during my trying "Three Days in Gilead," but also throughout an extended tour otherwhere in his native land--the Holy Land of my faith.

THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

At last, after waiting twenty leaden-winged years from the time in which a fixed purpose was formed in me to visit the Orient, the realization came. The year that saw the fulfillment of my cherished ambition was definitely determined upon eight summers before it took its place in the calendar of history. Fortune smiled upon my plan. I was ready. My joy was akin to ecstasy.

Imagine my disappointment when, in the month of May of my chosen year, 1900, I learned that no agency would organize a tourist party to move at a time in the summer or autumn that would suit me! There was but one alternative--to travel independent of any organization. This I would do. The decision to do so brought instant and happy relief.

At no time in my period of absence of five months did I meet a single former acquaintance. I planned every move, and held myself in every way responsible for results. The experience I thus gained in the many countries visited I value highly. Not infrequently I found myself in trying situations; but all ended well. To-day, in my inventory of life's rich and helpful experiences, though it were possible for me to do it, I would not eliminate one of these. It was a kind Providence that denied me the luxury of a place in a modern "personally conducted"

tourist party.

A few articles descriptive of certain experiences have been written by me for publication. Some themes I have presented on the lecture platform a few hundred times. My auditors, universally, have been kind in their criticisms. Many have been the requests that I write a volume reciting the story of my travels. In response I have steadily refused.

Many books on travel have appeared in recent years, possibly too many; but I have seen very little that has been written about the trans-Jordanic highlands. And it is not strange, for, though mult.i.tudes of tourists annually visit Palestine, not one person out of a thousand of them ever goes east of the Jordan. And is it worth while? We shall see.

On my trip I tried to identify no biblical site; I tried to locate no city of antiquity; I dug into no mound; I disturbed no ruin. All this I left to the geographer, the historian, and the archaeologist who had preceded me, or who should come after me. True, with the help of my Bible, map, guide-book, and guide, I formed opinions, and was happy in the fitness of some of them; but, in the main, I was content to rest in the conclusions reached by those who had studied scientifically and reverently every hill and valley and ruin in this neglected region.

But my observation and experience no other has had. I know of no other who mapped out or traveled the route chosen by me. I sought and expected much; I found and experienced more. And though eight years have pa.s.sed since my journeyings in Gilead, yet so fresh is the memory of those days that I need make but slight reference, as I write, to the notes that were then written. Often, in recent years, I have found myself lingering in thought on some high ridge looking out over an extended panorama filled with sacred a.s.sociations, or silently gazing up into the strangely impressive Oriental sky by night. Even as I write I seem to catch again a perfume-laden breeze, bearing repose to my weary soul. And if the memory of this land seen in its desolation is so refreshing to a foreigner, what must not the possession of the real in the days of its fatness have been to the weary, battle-scarred Israelites who secured permission to abide here!

So, in response to the call of my friends, and with the hope of adding somewhat to the meager fund of information concerning a once famous district, or, at least, to create additional interest in the territory occupied by the tribe of Gad in the days of early allotment, I undertake to tell the story of "My Three Days in Gilead."

Dayton, Virginia, February 20, 1909.

CHAPTER I.

Damascus! A city that numbers the years of its existence in millenniums; that witnessed in the dawn of history the migration of Abraham as he went out from Ur to a land not known to him, and to whom she gave one of the best of her sons; that sent out the leper, Naaman, to Palestine for healing and received him back whole; that hailed with great preparations the coming of Elisha, who had previously blinded her army at Dothan; that welcomed Saul of Tarsus in his blindness, restored his sight, and sent him, transformed in his life, to transform Asia Minor and cla.s.sic Europe. Damascus! A city surviving an age-long struggle with the encroaching desert--a struggle that must go on through ages to come; but, as long as the Abana and Pharpar continue to flow, the sands that would bury her forever in oblivion will be changed into a soil of life-giving and life-sustaining fertility sufficient to support her thousands of inhabitants. Damascus! A city of the long ago, practically unchanged, where the Occidental may look to-day with unfeigned interest upon architecture, costumes, and customs similar to those that prevailed in the East while Greece and Rome were yet young.

Damascus! A city celebrated for a thousand years for its bazaars, work-shops, and roses; a city so beautiful thirteen hundred years ago that Mohammed, viewing it for the first time from a distance, is said to have exclaimed: "Man can have but one paradise. My paradise is heaven; I cannot enter yonder city!" a city to-day of unsurpa.s.sed beauty, when viewed from the distance, with its white domes and slender minarets rising above the shrubbery and trees of its thirty thousand gardens. Here in this old city; in this historic city; in this beautiful city; in Damascus, I greet you and extend to you an invitation to join me in my proposed trip through Gilead.

My party as yet consists of but two persons. My dragoman, William Barakat, of Jerusalem, in response to a telegram sent from Constantinople, met me several days ago at Beyrout. He is a native Syrian, talks good English, dresses like an American, (save that he wears a red fez,) and is a Christian in faith. Before reaching this city he has already rendered me excellent service. He is intelligent, having attended the American College at Beyrout. I can trust him.

My arrangements with my guide are simple. He is to take me over my desired route by best possible methods of travel; to furnish the best of fare and lodging obtainable; to guarantee me a safe escort; and he is to do all this within a specified time and for a stipulated price. I did not then know how little I was asking as to fare and lodging, but when I knew that he was fulfilling his part of the agreement I had little cause for just complaint.

By early dawn, on October thirtieth, we had breakfasted and had bidden good-by to all the servants about the hotel, (many of whom I did not know to exist, but who, somehow, had learned of me, and had risen thus early to witness my departure and to ask a fee for services that I am quite sure some of them had had no part in rendering,) and had ordered the driver to lose no time in reaching the station of the Damascus-Hauran Railroad, about two miles distant. But, notwithstanding the early hour, the streets were already crowded with people, mules, donkeys, dogs, and other things. It was only with great effort that we could make any headway, and at times it seemed that the crowd, angered at our persistence, would stop us entirely in our struggle to pa.s.s through. We did the best we could, but we missed the train. Since there were ONLY THREE TRAINS A WEEK on that road, it meant that I must go back to that same hotel and spend two more days in Damascus at the rate of ten dollars a day, and then, again, on leaving, must fee those same servants for service that I did not want, and, generally speaking, did not get. But, though the disappointment was great, it brought additional opportunity to study the wonders and ways of the wonderful city wherein I was forced to remain.

A second time my dragoman prepares food for our journey; and again, on the morning of November first, we hurry to the station. This time we do not miss the train--we wait for it--and we wait a long time; but with the waiting there is contentment, for, if the train move south, I, too, am sure of going.

"Through Bashan"

CHAPTER II.

At the time of this writing there is a railroad extending from Damascus to Mecca, but at the time of my visit the terminus was at Mezarib, a small town about fifty miles south of Damascus, near the northern boundary-line of Gilead. It was in my plan to travel that distance by rail; hence my presence at the city railroad station.

The ride to Mezarib, through Bashan, especially that part of it now known as the Hauran, is one of more than ordinary interest. For the first twenty-five miles the land is literally covered with black basaltic rocks, as is also part of the remaining distance. How it is cultivated I can scarcely understand, for I am sure that the American horse could not be made to serve well here. But I was told that the natives do cultivate it, and that they raise excellent crops of grain.

When I looked upon them at work with their crude wooden plows and brush harrows, and then heard that they raise excellent crops of grain, I was satisfied that the land must be very fertile; and I was reminded of a certain humorist's remark about the fertility of some land in Kansas, of which he said, "All you need to do is to tickle the ground with a hoe, and it will laugh with a big harvest." Farther on the rocks almost entirely disappear, and there is spread out a beautiful valley, extending far to the south, whose fertility and pasturage attracted the Israelites on their march to Canaan, and which, ever since, has caused the name "Bashan" to be a synonym for "plenty." And, because of its abundant production of grain, which finds a ready market in Damascus, it has been aptly called the "granary of Damascus."

The manner in which this grain is put on the market is quite novel to me. I see hundreds of camels loaded with large sacks of grain moving with slow, swinging tread toward Damascus, or returning unloaded to the desert. The camels proceed in single file, usually ten or more in a train, and each is led by means of a rope fastened to the animal next in front--the rope of the foremost of all being fastened to the saddle of a donkey, on which the owner, or driver, usually rides. Many grindstones also are shipped from this country, one large stone const.i.tuting a load for a camel. This land is, also a great grazing region, and for more than three thousand years Bashan has been celebrated for its fine breed of cattle.

Some distance south of Damascus I cross the headwaters of the Pharpar River, whose clear, sparkling water Naaman considered much more suitable for a general's bath than the muddy water of the Jordan. At my place of crossing an athlete could clear the stream at a single bound.

The distant scenery deserves more than a pa.s.sing notice, though but little more can be given here. Off to the west, in plain view, is Mount Hermon, whose towering, snow-capped summit in all probability looked upon the transfigured person of the Son of Man. To the east is the Lejah, in, or near which is Edrei, where Og, the giant king of Bashan, was slain in the attempt to hold his realm against the home-seeking Israelites under the leadership of Moses. South of the Lejah are the Hauran Mountains, now occupied by the Druses, a people of a peculiar religious faith--a faith which is a mixture of Mohammedan, Christian, and Zoroastrian elements. One of their beliefs is that the number of souls in existence never varies. "Accordingly, all the souls now in life have lived in some human form since the creation, and will continue to live till the final destruction of the world." To them prayer is thought to be an unwarrantable interference with the Almighty. They, having colonized this mountain, are at present causing the Turkish government much trouble. They number about 90,000, and are almost continuously at war with the neighboring Bedouin tribes. And because of the feuds which prevail here, it is expected, and I believe is a matter of law, that all visitors to this region must have an escort either of soldiers or Bedouins. Were not robbery and bloodshed so prevalent in the East-Jordan country, its ruins and scenery would attract hundreds of tourists where now but a few ever suffer their curiosity or interest in Bible lands to turn them aside from the beaten paths of travel. In my course I pa.s.s through a portion of the land of which we read in Deut. 3:3-5, noted for its many "rock cities." I look upon the ruins of a number of these, but have little opportunity for a close examination. The most noted ruins that I see are at Sunamein and at Mezarib. But those who have pressed farther east, and who have made a careful study of the best preserved of these "rock cities" of Bashan, tell us that everything about them is of stone-doors, gates, windows, stairs, rafters, galleries, cupboards, benches, and even candlesticks.

So perfectly preserved are some of these "dead cities," that of one, Salcah, Doctor Porter says that some five hundred of the houses are still standing, and that "from three hundred to four hundred families might settle in it at any moment without laying a stone or expending an hour's labor on repairs." Of Beth-gamul another traveler says in part: "The houses were some of them very large, consisting usually of three rooms on the ground floor, and two on the first story, the stairs being formed of large stones built in the house walls, and leading up outside. The doors were, as usual, of stone; sometimes folding doors, and some of them highly ornamental. I wandered about quite alone in the old streets of the town--entered one by one the old houses, went up-stairs, visited the rooms, and, in short, made a careful examination of the whole place; but so perfect was every street, every house, every room, that I almost fancied I was in a dream, wandering alone in this city of the dead, seeing all perfect, yet not hearing a sound." Much of the work in most of these cities is on such a large scale as to indicate that the houses were built by, and intended for a race of giants. When we think of these fortresses of strength defended by their mighty occupants, and remember that they were probably in existence at the time of the exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the victories of Moses gained here become sublime.

We are nearing Mezarib. All forenoon has been consumed in covering a distance of only about fifty miles. But by twelve o'clock we have pa.s.sed almost completely across the land where Og was king, especially that part of his kingdom which, not long after being wrested from him and his giant followers, was a.s.signed to the eastern half-tribe of Mana.s.seh for a permanent possession.

Before leaving Beyrout my dragoman telegraphed to Jerusalem for a muleteer and three horses to be sent to this railroad terminus. Must we be disappointed in this! We are both solicitous. My guide is leaning far out of the car window long before the train stops to learn, if possible, whether or not his order has been obeyed. I watch that dark, anxious, perplexed face with much solicitude. Ah, he smiles! The sunshine of satisfaction chases the clouds of anxiety and doubt from his countenance, and that dark face looks beautiful to me. He is happy, and I share in his happiness. Our muleteer and horses are awaiting us.

"Among Bedouins"

CHAPTER III.

At twelve o'clock our train stopped. I was quickly introduced to him who had been awaiting us, and who was now to join our party--"Haleel,"

of Jerusalem. He was dressed in typical Eastern fashion, wearing the wide pantaloons, flowing robe, and "kufiyeh"; he was apparently twenty-five years old, dark-skinned, and blind in one eye; he could not speak a word of English; and he was a devout Mohammedan. "Haleel, of Jerusalem!" Notwithstanding his fantastic appearance, the name and place of residence seemed to me a blending of mystery and sacredness. I did not hesitate to extend a cordial greeting, and his smile of confused interest as I tried to shake hands with him while he tried to give me an Oriental salutation won me to him. It was his only intelligible language to me, but it was sufficient to give me a.s.surance of his friendship, and I was beginning to feel that from that hour I should need friends. The salutation that Haleel offered to me was a quick, graceful movement of his hand toward my feet, next to his lips, and then lightly to his forehead. I had seen the natives do this in exchanging salutations, and now that it had been offered to me I sought an interpretation. My guide explained that Haleel meant to tell me that he felt so honored in meeting me, that he "would take the dust from my feet, would kiss it, and then place it on his forehead." Beautiful sentiment! Had I ever previously in my life been so honored in meeting any one!

The greeting over, I noticed unusual movements about the station. Many Turkish soldiers were there. They stood about in groups engaged in animated conversation. Upon inquiry I learned that the feuds so common in that region were again "on," and that the soldiers were there to quell lawlessness. As I was the only tourist there I became an object of special interest. Some of the men came to my dragoman, and only a few words had pa.s.sed until I knew that I was the subject of their conversation. I could occasionally catch the word "hawadje," which means "master," and I knew they were referring to me. Then they would look at me and shake their heads. I was anxious to know what it all meant, but had to be content with what my guide was pleased to tell of it. He seemed to have gained his point, but he told me nothing except to prepare for a hard trip, as a day's distance must be covered, if possible, before nightfall. As we had already lost two days in Damascus, I was not averse to trying something strenuous in order to make up in part for that loss. I felt quite equal to the task, (though it proved to be a severe ordeal,) when it was explained to me that it would require a ride of more than forty miles to reach a safe halting-place for the night. My guide had planned it; and I was committed to the plan.

After a hurried lunch, eaten in the tent of an Arab, I prepare for,--I know not what. I put on my leggings and head-gear. Then I give over my luggage, which consists of a suit-case, hand-grip, umbrella, and alpenstock, to Haleel. I keep my overcoat, not because the weather is cold,--it is hot,--but because I think I may possibly need it as a kind of cushion for my saddle before the day is over. The need was felt, and SORELY felt quite early in the afternoon; but most of the time we rode too rapidly for my overcoat to supply the need,--it just would not stay where I had hoped it might serve me well. So it happened that I was destined to experience on that ride such misery as I had scarcely thought one could endure. But, I antic.i.p.ate.

We are ready. I am anxious to be going. I am delighted when my horse, a beauty, indeed, and of pure Arabian stock, is led up by two dusky sons of the desert. Surely my long trip to Jerusalem will be one of pleasure when I am mounted on such a steed! At half-past twelve o'clock we mount, and, facing to the south, we set off at a brisk pace for Gerasa, (known to the Arabs as Jerash,) where it has been planned that we shall spend the night. Several of the natives accompany us a short distance on foot, one running on either side of my horse and holding to the bridle; but soon, with interesting and graceful salaams, they leave us to pursue our hot and dusty way alone.

There are just three of us, and we proceed in the following order: my dragoman, who is guide and interpreter, leads the way; I follow next after him; bringing up the rear is our muleteer, who takes charge of all luggage, cares for the horses, and especially for,--me. Why should I not be happy? For the first time in my life I have two men engaged to look after my wants. They did their duty well,--were almost painfully attentive at times. But to-day I thank them for their kind severity.

Not having spent more than a few hours on horse-back in the previous ten years, I found, after riding a few miles, that it required more than a beautiful horse to make riding comfortable to an inexperienced rider. But our way led through such a beautiful valley, and on either hand were mountains so suggestive of Bible narrative that there was much in the earlier part of the afternoon to divert my attention from any physical discomfort. Where we were riding there was no road,--simply bridle-paths, and frequently not even a path.

After we had been riding for an hour a young Arab on camel-back joined us. I did not like his searching looks from a face almost hidden in his head-garment. But he stayed with us for a half-hour, and in that time had raced his camel with our horses; then he suddenly turned from us toward the near mountains of Gilead. We met a number of caravans in the earlier part of the afternoon, and I noted that every man that I saw carried a gun, or some sort of sword, or large knife. They were ready for defense, if occasion should arise.

About two o'clock we pa.s.sed a "memorial heap," or cairn. Some tragedy occurred there, and the custom of the region is that the pa.s.ser-by places reverently on the pile of rocks already formed an additional stone. Elsewhere I had seen this done when it seemed to me the actor was under the spell of a superst.i.tious fear.

About the middle of the afternoon a soldier, full armed, dashes up to us in a mad gallop, hands a message to my dragoman, and then as rapidly rides back again. I am a little alarmed at this until I learn that he has entrusted a writing to us to be delivered in Jerusalem. A little later I see another soldier leave the group in which he is riding and gallop ahead across the open way to the brow of a hill. There he dismounts, lays down his gun, takes the robe, or blanket, on which he rode, spreads it upon the ground, faces toward Mecca, and prostrates himself in prayer. The prayer over, he dashes down to his party and they are off like the wind.